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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] we'll have to confront the farm-labor

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  • From: "elderberryjam" <elderberryjam@zippytech.com>
  • To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] we'll have to confront the farm-labor
  • Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2008 16:03:23 -0400

"At first glance, New York would seem a particularly ripe state for a midsized farm renaissance. It boasts a bustling metropolis -- the nation's largest -- with a strong and growing locavore scene."

For some reason, this thread makes me think of the Drover's Trail, the old trail from the west, to NY where animals were driven for food before the RR's were put in. Yesterday we spent several hours beside it or on it, at the mouth where Pipe Creek runs into the Ohio, at Dilles Bottom, OH. That is where the Plymouth Reliant that belonged to my grandfather - a car that has been resurrected several times for my children - was ditched when its fuel line broke the night before. My kids got a ride home and left it there, for me to take care of later.

My husband and I took them right back down, and made them help fix the fuel line to get it home. As we were standing around, "helping," I explained to them about how this used to be where the animals crossed the river ages ago. The water was shallow at the bend at Dilles Bottom, before they put in the locks way upriver. Now the old Drovers Trail is a county road that follows Pipe Creek up to Key Ridge. We walked over to the ledge where the bank dropped away below, and a mother duck and 5 ducklings were swimming peacefully up-creek. The water was muddy from recent storms. This was also one of the 2 creeks involved in the "Flood of Tears," in Shadyside, OH one June the 1980's; a 100 year flood that dropped several inches of rain in a short period of time on the ridges, creating a wall of water coming down Pipe and Weegee Creeks. One person told me he had just built a new garage, and it would have stood the flood just fine, if his sister's house hadn't run into it. One of my grandfathers had told me years before he died of such a flood. He was county commissioner, and he was angry that nobody was going along with him in not permitting people to build along those two creeks. He told me lives were going to be lost. They were, but he wasn't still alive to witness it.

The animals first traveled along National Road/Route 40, but as it became more populated, the uppity folks insisted that the animals be driven eastward on a route further south. Hence the existance of the Drovers Trail. Someone keeps a nice little boer goat farm near the mouth, with a blade sharpening business, today.

And up in Key where the trail comes out onto the ridge, the only local farmer who openly hired migrant labor has a big farm. Many people complained about his bringing these kinds of people in, and it was a topic of discussion for several years.

Historically, it seems to all tie together. The same sorts of contraversies repeat themselves in different ways.

Gwen



  • Re: [Livingontheland] we'll have to confront the farm-labor, elderberryjam, 06/01/2008

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